Southern California -- this just in

Past 1:30 a.m., cheers as space shuttle moves -- then, a leak

October 14, 2012 | 2:34
am

Past 1:30 a.m., after staying still for more than five hours for a longer-than-expected pit stop in Leimert Park, a crowd raised their cameras in unison -- a constellation of flashes winking into the night -- and chanted "USA!" as the space shuttle Endeavour finally resumed its march to the California Science Center.

But minutes later, after moving 100 feet, the hundreds of fans hushed. Endeavour ground to a halt again. Crews spotted a hydraulic leak from one of the wheeled trailers under the spacecraft, and rushed to put powder over it.

Such was the increasingly beleaguered move of the space shuttle Endeavour, which began encountering delay after delay by Saturday afternoon after negotiating tight squeezes past trees and poles officials had left intact.

By 2:10 a.m., the crowd of 400 began a progressive clap for it to go, as if cheering for the underdog.

Then, three minutes later, Endeavour began its last delicate maneuver -- wiggling its way past trees planted on both sides of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in honor of the slain civil rights leader.

It moved crab-like, dodging the tall pines, and glided underneath power lines that had been pushed a bit more skyward to allow the five-story-tall shuttle to pass.